Seow W K
University of Queensland Dental School, Brisbane, Australia.
Int Dent J. 1997 Jun;47(3):173-82. doi: 10.1002/j.1875-595x.1997.tb00783.x.
Changes in enamel during its development are permanently recorded, and commonly present as either demarcated opacity, diffuse opacity, or enamel hypoplasia. Developmental enamel defects may provide clues regarding their aetiology, and this may have application in clinical dentistry, dental epidemiology and anthropology. However, the usefulness of these applications may be hampered by many pitfalls encountered in the detection and diagnosis of developmental enamel defects. The defects may be masked by saliva, dental plaque, and incorrect lighting. In addition, confounding effects of post-eruptive changes such as dental caries, attrition, and traumatic loss of tooth structure may impair the detection of developmental enamel defects. The non-specificity of appearance of enamel defects may make aetiologic diagnosis of enamel hypoplasia difficult. Furthermore, difficulty is often encountered in the relative timing of events in enamel hypoplasia, due to limited data on the chronology of development of the human dentition. In this review, pitfalls in the clinical assessment of enamel defects are discussed, and guidelines to overcome some of these difficulties are presented.
牙釉质在发育过程中的变化会被永久记录下来，通常表现为界限分明的不透明、弥漫性不透明或牙釉质发育不全。发育性牙釉质缺陷可能提供有关其病因的线索，这在临床牙科、牙科流行病学和人类学中可能有应用价值。然而，这些应用的有效性可能会受到发育性牙釉质缺陷检测和诊断中遇到的许多陷阱的阻碍。这些缺陷可能会被唾液、牙菌斑和不正确的光照所掩盖。此外，诸如龋齿、磨损和牙齿结构的外伤性丧失等萌出后变化的混杂效应可能会损害发育性牙釉质缺陷的检测。牙釉质缺陷外观的非特异性可能使牙釉质发育不全的病因诊断变得困难。此外，由于关于人类牙列发育时间顺序的数据有限，在牙釉质发育不全事件的相对时间方面常常遇到困难。在这篇综述中，讨论了牙釉质缺陷临床评估中的陷阱，并提出了克服其中一些困难的指南。
